Treasure Trove: Portrait of an artist

The National Portrait Gallery has three portraits - paintings of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, former Attorney-General Tom Hughes and the Gallery's founding patron Gordon Darling - that were painted by Chinese-born artist Shen Jiawei (b. 1948).

The Gallery also treasures a portrait of the artist himself - a photograph that depicts him with his wife Wan Lan, daughter Xini and dog Billy in the artist's studio at Bundeena, south of Sydney. In the background there's a self-portrait of Shen in which he's shown as a Chinese court painter in long robes working on the painting of Crown Princess Mary.

The photographic portrait was created in 2010 by Australian art photographer Greg Weight (b. 1946) and was entered in the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

"To me it was the absolute clear stand-out winner," says NPG historian Sarah Engledow. "But it didn't end up winning because the judging process is a collaborative one - I just couldn't bully the judges into picking this one but it was subsequently acquired for our collection."

Revolutionary

Shen Jiawei grew up during the Cultural Revolution and began to be recognised as an artist in the mid-1970s, specialising in history paintings that were exhibited in prestigious collections in Beijing.

In 1974 he painted his famous revolutionary image Standing Guard for our Great Motherland.

"Madam Mao particularly loved this picture," says Sarah. "It was reproduced in newspapers, in magazines...it was even reproduced on a 10 metre high tower that faced the Soviet Union, if you can imagine that, it's like a giant billboard of Chinese soldiers saying 'We're watching you!'"

But Sarah says it was no joke when Shen was sent for re-education up to "snow country" where he was forced to make propaganda art.

"He had his day in the sun being a favourite of Madam Mao but then after Tiananmen Square he fled China and he made his living drawing portraits of passers-by at Darling Harbour."

Affectionate

Sarah says Greg Weight's portrait is a success for a number of reasons, including the strong diagonal element of the dog's nose pointing to the upper-left corner of the composition and the "Chineseness" of the "rich golden sepia vibe" and the "jade figurine" style of the figure of Shen's daughter Xini.

Shen Jiawei and Greg Weight, she says, have represented each other many times in the past.

"The guys are friends," she explains. "It's a playful work, it's an affectionate work - I think the affection between the photographer and the sitter really comes through. But what I love is the assertive and yet gentle fatherly figure of the artist - he looks just so proud of his work, his family, of his dog - of where' he's got to, where he's at."